Amanda Knox, a 24-year-old American, is finally free.
Wrongly accused, wrongly convicted . . . four years in an Italian prison for a crime she did not commit. Tonight, she is free.
(Disclaimer: I have never believed that Amanda Knox was guilty in this case and I contributed to her appeal fund.)
Background: Amanda's roommate, Meredith Kercher, was brutally murdered in the apartment these two college students shared in Perugia, Italy.
The murder scene was blood-splattered and horrifying. There was no DNA evidence whatsoever that Amanda Knox had been present. Despite this, Amanda's statements to the police (made without benefit of counsel and after hours and hours of interrogation) were used against her to convict her of murder. She had previously been sentenced to 25 years in prison and when she appealed this verdict, the prosecutors asked, in return, that she be sentenced to life.
Today, the appeals court reversed her conviction and set her free.
After the verdict:
Waiting for her in jail was Rocco Girlanda, an Italian MP who has campaigned for her release and who said Knox and her family would spend the night in Rome before taking a scheduled flight back to Seattle on Tuesday.
"She was beside herself with joy and there was a huge cheer when she returned to the prison, an ovation from every cell," he told journalists outside the jail minutes after Knox had sped off into the night in a black Mercedes laid on by Girlanda, on her way to meet her parents at an undisclosed location before driving to Rome.
"Everyone was shouting 'Libera, libera.' It was like being in a football stadium and was something I will never forget. Amanda saluted the other prisoners with a timid wave – she didn't really know how to react."
(snip)
Earlier in the day Knox's voice had choked with emotion – at times, to the point she was unable to continue until she had caught her breath – as she pleaded with the judges who cleared her and her Italian former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, of the murder of Meredith Kercher.
"I want to go home to my life," she told the court. "I don't want to be deprived of my life, my future, for something I have not done."
At the end of an intensely emotional plea, delivered entirely without notes and in near-perfect Italian, she said very quietly: "Do justice."
On Tuesday night, her request was answered. After a brief statement amid extraordinarily tense courtroom scenes, Knox and Sollecito were cleared of murder. The pair were free to go.
The Guardian
The Murder of Meredith Kercher
My heart breaks for the family of Meredith Kercher. But the heartbreak does not mean that the railroading of Amanda Knox was appropriate by any means. She was a naïve college student caught in a web of deception by others . . . and she paid for her naivete with four years of her young life in an Italian prison.
I am so grateful that she is free tonight.